Blogging spirituality and religion, politics, pastoral counseling, relationships, and other things that count in Pastor Katherine's corner of the world...

Sunday, March 10, 2013

The Mystery of the Self class

I'm teaching a class each Sunday morning called "The Spiritual Life," and for the past several weeks I've begun a new series called "The Mystery of the Self."
We've covered Kierkegaard's vision of how the self is created, Robert Kegan's The Evolving Self, and today I did an introduction to process theology so that next week we can discuss Catherine Keller's view of self from a feminist process perspective.

So interesting how the class at 9 a.m. is more intellectual -- people there are interested in ideas, and we play off each other's views. The folks who attend at the 10:45 class are coming at this from their own experience of how they have (and are) developing their sense of self.

So, I'm getting both sides of how I myself came at this subject. It's really gripping me...I'm loving it!

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A Christian Century Blog

Who I Am

Second career minister and pastoral counselor. Married late, I now thoroughly enjoy my husband, three children-by-marriage, one daughter-in-law and two beautiful grandchildren. My sister, niece, and nephew live in South Carolina, and my brother and sister-in-law live in Thailand. Ph.D. in pastoral theology and pastoral counseling. Learning to love; practicing authenticity....I took the photo on a trip to France.

A I

Inclusivity

Rabbi Mecklenberger wrote:

Thank God the biblical ethic of love and justice has continued to advance, moving us beyond our hatred of people who are not like ourselves. Our biblical and post-biblical traditions demonstrate progression from exclusivity to inclusivity, as the Abrahamic promise advances from a narrow tribal understanding to God’s promise of light for all the nations in the Prophets and beyond. We believe that this movement of God’s Spirit did not end when the last words of Scripture were written, but continues to this day, tearing down barriers of injustice and small-mindedness that make it impossible for us to practice the Biblical ethic of love.

Marriage...

Barbara Brown Taylor:

We are lovers of a God who specializes in turning the world’s values upside down. We are followers of a Lord who waited tables and washed feet. We are heirs of a Spirit who has power to revive the whole creation, beginning with us, but only if we will allow it - by giving up all illusions that we know how to save ourselves and begging God, one more time, to show us how it is done. One reason we run from God’s wisdom, I think, is because we do not know how to behave once we have surrendered our power. Do we just go limp now? Probably not. We should probably go on trying to be the best we know how to be, using the best tools at hand. We just should not fool ourselves into thinking that we know what is really going on. It is entirely possible that some of our proudest achievements are embarrassing to God, and some of our most dismal failures please God very much. There is simply no way of telling, since our wisdom is so different from God’s wisdom. The only thing we can be sure of is that everything we offer up is eligible for the transforming power of God, who loves nothing better than bringing the dead back to life.

RevGals

Security

Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of humanity as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. ~Helen Keller~

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Listen to Your Life

Listen to your life. See it for the fathomless mystery that it is. In the boredom and the pain of it no less than in the excitement and gladness: touch, taste, smell your way to the holy and hidden heart of it, because in the last analysis all moments are key moments, and life itself is grace. And Christ is here with us on our way as surely as the way itself is here that has brought us to this place. Christ is with us, as subtle and pervasive as air. (Frederick Buechner)